Blanket Baltimore in at least 8 inches of snow, encase it in thick layer of ice and cap it off with days of brutally cold temperatures. What do you get?

An $80 million budget overrun.

That’s how much Baltimore officials say the final tab ran for snow removal this winter season, a sum that’s 10 times the $8 million the city budgeted.

The overage, which was discussed at a hearing of the Baltimore City Council’s Budget and Appropriations Committee Tuesday, has gobbled up all of the excess revenue the city expected to have by the end of the fiscal year, which expires June 30. Now, Baltimore is on track to end the year with a $64 million deficit.

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Baltimore is required to balance its budget, which will mean covering the deficit on an emergency basis. Bob Cenname, the city’s interim budget director, told the council the money will come from COVID-era reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and if necessary, drawing from the city’s Rainy Day Fund.

“The Rainy Day Fund would be a kind of last resort option,” Cenname said after the hearing.

The storm that hit Baltimore in late January covered the Baltimore region with snowfall of 8 to 12 inches. The area usually sees no more than 7.5 inches of snowfall in January and February, according to National Weather Service data. The situation was compounded by sleet that accumulated on top of the snow. Temperatures remained below freezing for more than a week after the storm, preventing the snow from melting.

City officials resorted to removing the snow with heavy equipment before melting it or piling it at locations like Old Town Mall. They even took the unusual and costly step of hiring contractors to clear alleys so trash could be collected.

Research suggests that global warming is increasing the potential for more torrential snowstorms on the East Coast — science that Mayor Brandon Scott and his administration have pointed to in the past when weather-related operations have been ramped up.

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Still, budget officials have added just $2 million to the city’s snow budget for the coming fiscal year. Cenname called last season’s winter weather an outlier.

“That was a pretty unique event, not just the precipitation but the freezing over,” Cenname said. “DOT did a really impressive effort to make sure those roads were safe and to make sure those streets were cleared as soon as possible.”

Councilwoman Danielle McCray, chairwoman of the committee, questioned whether the additional $2 million would be enough. Cenname conceded that it likely was not, but said officials plan to study past storms during the year to determine a better average.

Cenname said he would like to hold over any excess funds that remain in the snow budget year-to-year to better accommodate years with higher snowfall. Some years Baltimore receives little to no snow, and funds have remained at the end of the year, he said.

Baltimore transportation officials declined to answer questions following the hearing, referring inquiries to the department’s spokeswoman. That spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

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Officials said that $18 million of the $80 million pot was used to clear city alleys. Plowing or shoveling alleys is typically the responsibility of the property owners who abut them.

Due to the extraordinary nature of the snow and ice and the extended stretch of cold temperatures, city officials made the decision to clear alleys to enable trash collection, said Faith Leach, Baltimore’s city administrator. Numerous contractors were tapped on an emergency basis.

“If you weren’t able to clear your alley or your sidewalk in the first few hours, you were likely frozen in,” Leach said. “This lasted about two to three weeks. What we did not want to happen as a public health issue because we were not able to collect trash.”

Leach said the alley work was also necessary to protect the city’s solid waste employees, who would not have been able to get to trash cans embedded in ice.

But the city won’t be making a policy of alley snow removal, Leach said.

“Moving forward, we will move back to our traditional protocol,” she said.